A teenage life in Ōhinehou Lyttelton in the 1960s

This week's local photograph features teenagers Suzanne and Annette Bachop with their horses on Winchester Street, Lyttelton on 30 September 1961. So what were the girls doing with their equine friends in the middle of the road? The occasion was a fair at the Anglican Church of the Most Holy Trinity, known locally as simply 'Holy Trinity'. Suzanne, with her retired trotter 'Flora Dawn', and Annette, with her little pony 'Ace', gave penny rides to children at the fair to raise money for the church. Behind the girls the Upham Clock and Lyttelton gaol site are clearly visible and the low density of housing on the hillside is prior to the wave of infill building of later decades.

The Bachop girls lived with their family first at Hawkhurst Road, later moving to Jacksons Terrace, and attended Lyttelton Main School. They were part of the extended Bachop family which has made its mark in both Lyttelton and wider afield, including Suzanne’s cousins of national rugby fame. Their father, Tom Bachop, bought a nine acre paddock near the start of the Bridle Path – at one time they grazed as many as five horses there. The girls delivered papers around Lyttelton on their horses; Annette collected the “Christchurch Press” from an office on Oxford Street and Suzanne met the 4.30 pm train from Christchurch at the Lyttelton Railway Station for the “Star” newspapers.

There was also time for fun. On a weekend the girls might go up the Bridle Path with frypan and potatoes and cook their lunch in the hills (free range eggs and foraged fruit would add to the feast if they were lucky!). Hot summer days meant fishing and swimming off the wharves or at Corsair Bay. Suzanne loved sports and notably played hockey for Canterbury for a number of years.

In our second photograph, Suzanne is holding her cornet in her Lyttelton Marine Band uniform on 23 February 1964, the day the Lyttelton Road Tunnel was opened. It also happened to be her 16th birthday! With her fellow band members Suzanne went into the tunnel entrance a few hundred metres and then out again in formation playing a march, before making their way to the Upham Memorial Garden to take part in the official opening ceremony.

After leaving school Suzanne was employed briefly at the Lichfield Shirt factory and local supermarket and then with the Post Office delivering telegrams and undertaking relief work. A pushbike was provided for the rounds but Suzanne wisely upgraded with her own Yamaha 55cc scooter to take on Lyttelton's steep hills. When she delivered a telegram to the Saxon Hotel on Norwich Quay she would be given a refreshing raspberry and lemonade. When she took a telegram to the Holmdale, the coastal trader which regularly serviced the Chatham Islands, she remembers a welcome cup of hot vegetable soup from the cook on a cold day.

Suzanne married Frank Moloney in 1968, who was the Manager Projectionist at the Harbour Light Theatre for a time in the 1960s. He ran other small theatres in Diamond Harbour, Cheviot, and Methven, and his career also took him to Timaru, Wellington, and Rotorua. Suzanne served 41 years as Payroll Clerk and Store Supervisor at Sinclair Melbourne (which later became Lyttelton Engineering), a time she remembers with fondness for the fun had alongside hard work. Now retired they currently live in Heathcote, just through the tunnel that Suzanne proudly took part in opening.

We are grateful to Suzanne for sharing some of her wonderful reminiscences of growing up in the 1960s in Ōhinehou Lyttelton. We also extend our sincere condolences for the recent passing of her sister Annette.